Mitt Romney and President Obama battle for fund-raising.

In the battle for political cash, President Obama is finding himself in an unaccustomed place during the final months of the 2012 campaign: he is losing.

Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee easily out raised the formidable Obama money machine for the second month in a row.

In a worrisome development for the Obama campaign, Mr. Romney, who until now has been heavily dependent on donors giving the maximum federal contribution, also showed success in June drawing small donors, a traditional strength of the Obama campaign. Reflecting the intensifying general election matchup with Mr. Obama and conservative anger over the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the president's signature health care law, Mr. Romney raised about a third of his total in checks of under $250, officials said on Monday. Mr. Romney and the R.N.C. now have about $160 million in cash.

Mr. Romney's surge puts him on track to raise the $800 million his campaign and the Republican National Committee hope to bring in by Election Day, leaving the real possibility that Mr. Obama could be outspent despite the advantages of incumbency. And with political reality
reasserting itself on Mr. Obama, he is being forced to rely more heavily on traditional Democratic constituencies, like Hollywood, labor unions and gay donors, as well as his own millions of small donors.

Mr. Obama, who reported about $109 million in cash in the bank at the end of May, has been significantly outspending Mr. Romney on advertising in swing states. But Mr. Romney's fund-raising successes are being matched by Republican-leaning outside groups, who are barraging the
airwaves with anti-Obama advertisements that the president's campaign has been forced to spend its own money to match.

"It's the perfect storm for Republicans," said R. Donahue Peebles, a New York businessman who has raised more than $100,000 for Mr. Obama. "Republicans and independents who supported the president financially thought they would see a change in how Washington worked. What they see now, and it's not necessarily the president's fault, is a lot of partisanship in Washington and a struggling economy."

Mr. Obama is being out raised despite a more intense fund-raising schedule than any of his predecessors: He was scheduled to hold two events on Monday in
Washington, bringing the total to 174 fund-raisers since formally beginning his re- election campaign last year, according to CBS News.

Yet money flooding into Mr.Romney's campaign suggests that even Mr. Obama the most prodigious fund-raiser to date in political history can be beaten. And Democratic-aligned outside groups, including those investing heavily in races for the House and the Senate, are far behind their Republican counterparts in raising and spending money.